Tag: Chemistry

This October, Tidbits offers its first ever Semester-ender series called ‘Epilogues’, a compilation of some of J’s unpublished works, his latest blog posts, and contemplations on the most awaited part of the semester: the Semestral Break!

As he sets another delay onto his graduation, ‘Epilogues’ will not only give definite closure to most things unsaid, but also a few insights to changes that may still happen in the near future.

For the past four years now, whenever I pass through the big gates of my high school Alma Mater, my old teachers have already gotten used to seeing me visiting my Senior year adviser who teaches General Chemistry 2 (though we call it ‘Advanced’ Chemistry there) to Fourth Year students, and not only that, they’re also used to seeing me in front of one or more of my adviser’s classes – teaching.

It has really been a habit of mine to visit during my free days – teaching on the spot to students who (to my surprise) find my old adviser’s teaching a bit fast paced. Usually, I would only sit down at the back and watch him carry on with his lecture, but at the middle of the lecture, he lets me stand in his place and continue with the lecture. Most of the time, he makes me discuss nomenclature lessons on Organic Chemistry (my self-proclaimed favorite branch), and allows me to assist the students on calculations.

Teaching Internship, for four years? Hell yeah! But I have to admit that it has been very fun and motivating for me to do. Fun, since I get to share my gift of being a good mentor – having met so many good teachers and professors over the time that I idolize because of their awesome ways of imparting the lesson to their students. Motivating, since it pushes me to study better so I can teach the concepts better.

Yes, I have always wanted to be a teacher in Chemistry. However, my mother discourages me from teaching (high schoolers in particular. Ironic, since my mother, an Engineer, was also a highschool math teacher when I was young), since it doesn’t really give that much of a good pay. She refers it as a ‘work out of passion’. And I am starting to believe her. A lot of teachers nowadays are after the pay, than giving good education. So, as for now, I am still considering doing something else and putting my teaching dreams aside, like working in the laboratory, and doing part – time teaching in college.

Finally I enroll for one more semester in College before heading off to New Jersey in the summer. After a very complicated First Semester, having failed Physical Chemistry on my first take on the subject, I was not able to take up most of my majors (aside from my thesis subject, which I am bound to finish before leaving), and now I am left with taking up two Literature classes, a Technical Writing Class and Physics (which I am taking up with Geology majors. OTL)

In my four years of staying in college, I finally got the chance to have one of my ‘lightest’ class load for this semester – 13 units, with a 6 unit sit-in, it is definitely a free T/TH morning for me this November to April. Now, I am more relieved to pursue my thesis and my experimental methodology, and attempt to finish it before the semester ends.

As much as I want to continue blogging and attend to this, while doing all the other stuff I am supposed to, I decided to take a leave from my blog for a while, refine my craft and how I write my content, and get back here with more interesting stories that I could share to all of you. I just happened to backread my content and see that most of the time, my entries are more of the ‘feels’, and ranting, and I seem to forget how to be more comfortable with how I am as a writer.

Nevertheless, I am sure to return, as I’ve always had. Or so to say, I have always been here, since I never really did leave.

Just this morning, I was faced yet again by another setback while preparing for our Organization’s Operational Plan – the Organization’s Plan of Activities for the whole school year. Our Committee Directors, mostly Senior Chemistry Students, are busy with their Summer Practicum, and the other officers are busy with their Summer Class (like me, for instance).

And what’s worse in this situation, is that we have barely 6 days to finish the Operational Plan, before we defend our proposed activities to the Student Affairs Office.

It’s been very stressful for me, and being the President, I did not want to take on all the responsibilities for them, in order to finish this task. And right now, I feel utterly depressed with how things are going. I even succumbed to writing my own resignation letter, even before I start my work with the Society, and settle as the Organization’s Society Representative to our National Organization – the Philippine Association of Chemistry Students.

And as I finished posting my rather long (and depressing) announcement to get this Operational Plan done (and so I can start drafting my Resignation Letter), a friend of mine shared this photo on Facebook:

A thought came into me, and I began praying. Maybe this is just part of the struggles I have to face for now. Maybe I still have a lot to prove, and I have to prove my unbelievers wrong. I closed my browser, and began drafting portions of the OP.

Its the time of the year again, when students proudly change their Facebook profile photos with their well-earned toga pictures, and when they begin posting stuff about how thankful they are with the four ( or sometimes more) years of studying. The time of the year when you go out on the streets and corsage vendors roam infront of school gates, and you see photographers taking pictures of students with their ever-proud parents beside them. Oh yes, no matter hard life has been inside the school, nothing can compare to the moments that each student will remember in their lifetimes, when they finish their studies and graduate from school.

To some, they just can’t wait to graduate – students who are so eager to head off to a new chapter in their lives. Others, find it difficult to say goodbye to friends who they may not see that often anymore – ones who would go on to different universities, studying different courses, and eventually meeting up not that frequent unlike when they were together inside the four corners of their Alma Mater.

And for people like me, well, its more of a complicated case too. Being delayed for a year, and with the uncertainty of a Chemistry Major’s life in AdU, I’m not sure anymore when it comes to my year of graduation. Maybe that’s why whenever my calendar strikes March, I feel all gloomy, whenever I remember how my classmate once said it: Gagraduate naman tayo eh. Hindi lang natin sure kung kailan (We’ll all graduate. We’re just not that sure when that’ll be)

I laugh it out, and shrug off the nostalgia. But whenever I hear my former colleagues talk about their Summer On-the-job training in the industry, I couldn’t help but sigh. But then again, my mom would tell me that I always had my choices, and she believed in them. Now, my self-motivation is that dream of actually getting to march at the PICC in 2 (or 3) years time, and actually get my Chemist’s License.

So for the meantime, I would just have to settle for that green-colored high school toga pic, for now. And despite my delayed status, I know I’ll get there. I will.

Seeing the small crowd of students who were inside the Lecture Room, made me wonder why nobody really wanted to stand up and want to be elected as an officer. But then again, in the back of my mind, I realized how not so many of us were into being officers, and how not a lot of us in our Organization, wanted an added task.

A thought came into my mind as I wrote this post: it went back to that time when I was still an Officer back at PLM. I was the Executive Secretary of the PLM Chemical Society at the time, and I was the youngest among the Executive Officers. I had to finish paperworks, and I had to do the minutes whenever we had a meeting. It was not an easy thing for a Sophomore to do the job, but because I wanted the post, and in my little way, be a part of the change inside the Organization, I did all my work with a smile.

Though I may not have finished my term at PLM, because of things that I had no hold of, and due to my transfer to Adamson, the eagerness of improving a small community of students with a common goal never faded. Stuff which I was never able to do back at my old school, would have a chance in this new avenue at AdU, and I pray that these may somehow push through, and that hopes of a group of people who work hand-in-hand be a promising sign that aside from turning AdU into one of the best schools in the country in terms of Chemistry education, but also the dreams of getting the Adamson University Chemical Society back on its track.

But still, I am ashamed that my dreaded Physics and Calculus grades are getting in my way so I can serve my orgmates as the newly elected Vice President. (According to my friends from the Seniors, a newly elected officer must have no failing grade) But I am not hopeless yet. And no matter what happens, I can even endure a Summer class, just to compensate for the failure and retain my post as the Vice President.

But even if things don’t go as planned, what matters is how I would still cooperate and provide all my efforts for the Organization despite the unfortunate events that might come my way.

So for all of my orgmates and the people who believed that I can help the AUCS to get back on its feet, thank you very much in advanced! Let’s not waste any moment further, and we shall work together for the group!